Engaging Others

Engaging Others is the second milestone on the way to becoming an effective leader. Armed with a deeper understanding of yourself, your motivations your talents and areas of ‘non-talent’ you are in a much better position to develop your ability to work effectively with and to inspire and lead others. After all…in many, many ways, they are just like you! They come from families, have needs and concerns, hopes and dreams, fears and anxiety. Like you they struggle with their own demons, get mired in their own comfort zones, lost in their own self-limiting belies. And, like you, they want strong guidance from successful mentors, coaches and leaders who can speed them along the way on the journey to their Dreams.

Here are some resources that can support you in developing the skills and mindsets to support others.

Listening: a key leadership skill.

Can you lend me your ear? Most people believe they are good listeners without considering the important differences between hearing and listening. The ability to hear is typically innate, but the ability to listen well is a skill that must be developed and practiced.

Listening means paying attention and making a conscious effort to process what you hear. It is one of our most important skills and it is also one of the most overlooked. We often take our ability to listen for granted, even knowing that it plays a major role in good communication. So are you the type of person who lets information in one ear and out the other, or are you a thoughtful, actively engaged listener?

When done in the right way and with the right intentions, feedback communication is the avenue to performance greatness. Employees have to know what they are doing well and not so well. For them to really hear your thoughts and suggestions on ways to improve, though, that feedback has to be delivered carefully and frequently.

Giving feedback effectively is a skill. And like all skills, it takes practice to build your confidence and improve. The following is a collection of "feedback giving" tips that you can start putting into practice today.

Delegating. The ability to confidently enroll others to take on serious responsibility is another key skill and mindset of all great leaders and coaches. Ineffective delegating is also the most common obstacles to career growth and momentum. The are of working through others, instead of doing it yourself. As on mentor says “Delegating, working through others, is a fundamental leadership ability. It involves finding new ways of being important, beyond doing everything yourself.” Not being effective in delegating responsibility to others is also the number one cause of stress in the workplace.

If you are ready to start learning how to delegate effectively, check out these resources:

One of the most important determinants of your effectiveness as a leader, coach and mentor is success in positively influencing others. We all have influencing skills, the crucial question is whether those skills result in a high level of commitment and are helpful and strengthen the other person.

This FREE QUIZ helps define the core influencing tactics you employ when working with others. For the following ten situations pick the one approach which best describes how you would attempt to positively influence the other person.